Rapper's Delight
State hospital becomes backdrop for reality TV
By Stephen Kurczy
Norwich State Hospital was a wrap when it closed in 1996, but now a rapper may be reviving the dilapidated correctional facility.
If the Los Angeles-based production company now filming on the grounds follows precedent, someone like Flavor Flav or Vanilla Ice has been in Preston for the past two weeks.
The state Department of Public Works granted 51 Mind Entertainment, a Los Angeles-based producer of reality TV, permission to film on the property for the past two weeks.
But DPW is unwilling to say why, and 51 Mind Entertainment has redirected all inquiries of its project to VH1, which in turn has refused to divulge any details of the project.
A publicist at VH1 did say the show will air in October.
However, she did not know what the show is about, or how large a crew is at the former state hospital, or why the crew had to trek across the country to film inside a former mental facility.
51 Mind Entertainment has produced Flavor of Love, starring Flavor Flav of the rap group “Public Enemy,” as well as “The Surreal Life,” a reality show about fading celebrities and how they live their day-to-day lives in one Los Angeles mansion.
The latter starred M.C. Hammer and Vanilla Ice, to name a few.
If 51 Mind Entertainment follows precedent, someone similar has been rapping in Preston for the past two weeks.
But who?
To find out, this inquiring journalist did drive onto the property, and he did find two moving vans and at least six cars were parked outside the administrative building, and a band of people walking around.
After asking to speak with someone in charge, a stoic woman wearing a blue raincoat walked up to his car.
“No one is going to talk to you,” she said, refusing to say her name. “We’re not going to tell you anything.”
She then called security, who wrote down this writer’s name and license plate number, and warned that he’d receive a $92 fine if he drove onto the grounds again.
Covert Operations at the State Hospital
FBI finds use at site; local firefighters receive honor
By Stephen KurczyFor over three years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been setting off explosives several times a year in one of the rear buildings of the Norwich State Hospital.
“We actually blow things up,” Brian Donnelly, a FBI special agent in the New Haven Division, said by phone last week. “The explosions don’t do any structural damage – it’s mostly cosmetic damage.”
The state hospital, closed since 1994, is the only place in the country where the FBI, in conjunction with the Connecticut Police, New Haven Police and Stamford Police, can conduct the indoor post-blast training course.
A bomb consisting of less than three pounds of explosives, simulating a pipe bomb or what to expect from a suicide bomber, is set off in the Russell Building – the former security headquarters. The next day, students in the post-blast training course assess the damage and guess the type and magnitude of the explosion.
“The students go out there and process the crime scenes as if they were real crime scenes and make a determination about what type of explosions went off,” Donnelly said. “It’s able to provide the students a realistic scenario to work on.”
Students come from the FBI, NYPD, Boston Police Department – even an individual from Bermuda’s bomb squad went through the course.
Previous locations for the training course include the Hew Haven Coliseum before it was torn down.
“It’s not easy to find a place to do post-blast training,” Donnelly said. “The place is unique in that. This type of training is only done in Connecticut, simply because getting a facility to use is difficult to come by.”
“It’s ideal,” Fire Chief Russell Holland said. “You’re off the road. You can block people from getting in the way.”
Donnelly teaches the indoor post-blast training with Sam DiPasquale, a special agent bomb technician.
Students of the course were used in the aftermath of the May 2003 bombing at Yale Law School, Donnelly said, and their training at the state hospital increased their ability to collect data.
Recently, seven volunteers in the Poquetanuck Fire Department received a letter of commendation from the FBI in recognition of their assistance during an indoor post-blast training at the state hospital.
“We couldn’t do it without them from a safety standpoint,” Donnelly said. “They’re always enthusiastic and do a great job for us.”
The commendation is signed by Robert Mueller, who was nominated by President George W. Bush to become the sixth director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“It was unexpected,” Steven Barrett, a lieutenant in the fire department, said of the commendation, which is hung in the fire department.
Barrett and his wife, Lisa, an emergency medical technician with the fire department, were both named on the letter, along with Michael Bednarz, Michael Gale, Walk Liss, Curt Spicer and Ronald York.
“The seven of us were present,” Barrett said. “It’s really interesting. It’s quite intense to realize what the FBI guys go through for their training.”
On several occasions, First Selectman Robert Congdon has watched the FBI training courses.
“It’s interesting stuff,” Congdon agreed.
It’s so interesting, in fact, that there is a line of firefighters volunteering to assist with the post-blast training.
“There is never a shortage of volunteers,” Barrett said. Both he and his wife took vacation days from work to assist in the training. “We’re there just in case there is a fire. Also, in case of injuries.”
After the FBI sets off an explosion, the firefighters enter the concrete building with an extinguisher and run a quick check.
The most recent training course yielded two small fires: one inside, and one on the lawn.
The fire department has also used the state hospital for exercises, Barrett said; they’ll smoke up a house and conduct mock search-and-rescue missions.
That could end within the year if Utopia Studios, Ltd. meets its development deadlines and purchases the property for $10.
“Until it’s actually sold, it’s our understanding we’ll be able to continue to the training,” Donnelly said.
But neither the FBI nor the fire department expected this utopia for training to last forever.
“We’ll just have to find someplace else,” Barrett said. “Utopia far outweighs the minor uses the property is getting right now.”
What Lies Beneath
Oil, outflow, found in Phase III Environmental Study
By Stephen KurczySixty-five feet beneath the ground of the former Norwich State Hospital are thousands of gallons of No. 6 fuel oil: a thick, syrupy, black, tar-like liquid.
Before the state hospital closed, the oil fueled its steam boilers and power generators. It was brought in by barge, and pumped through a long pipe that still extends along a decaying dock into the middle of the Thames River.
The oil was stored in two 750,000-gallon above-ground tanks (which still sit on the property), and then gradually pumped up the bank of the Thames River and into two 20,000-gallon underground tanks. Leaks were found when the two underground tanks were removed in 1998.
Engineers are combing the former Norwich State Hospital for hazardous waste and contaminants that will need to be removed by Utopia Studios before construction can begin on their $1.6 billion entertainment complex.
“They’re finding a lot,” according to First Selectman Robert Congdon, who updated the Hospital Advisory Committee last week on the Phase III Environmental Study being conducted by Earth Tech and overseen by Bloomfield-based GZA GeoEnvironmental, Inc.
Earth Tech’s bill is estimated at $900,000. GZA GeoEnvironmental’s bill is $50,000. Both bills are footed by Utopia Studios.
“The last thing I knew, they had not found the outer limits of the No. 6 fuel oil,” Congdon said.
The oil spreads in a circle at least 300 feet in diameter, and in places the oil is 5 feet deep.
There is some concern that the oil could seep into the Thames River.
If contaminants from the state hospital – such as mercury or oil – have seeped into the Thames River, Utopia will be responsible for their removal, along with cleaning up the entire state hospital property.
Cost of environmental cleanup has been estimated between $25 million and $40 million.
“If there are huge outfalls right there in front of this site, they’ll probably make them clean it up,” Congdon said. “I think we need to get the outfall issue clarified.”
Determining what pollutants come from upstream versus what pollutants come from the state hospital is a sticky wicket, Congdon said, and will ultimately be resolved by the Department of Environmental Protection.
The Thames River has a 200-year history of pollution, Congdon said (adding that oysters from the river were deemed inedible as early as 1800), which means tracing contamination to any one industry is difficult.
United Nuclear, where the Mohegan Sun now stands, once built nuclear fuel reactors along the shore of the Thames. Upstream, the Thermos plant – to name another of the many mills and textiles spanning the Thames River – may have leaked mercury and heavy metals into the river.
At one time, Congdon said he remembers the river changing color, depending on the color of paper that Robertson Paperyard was producing.
“The DEP said the river is polluted,” said Congdon. “They don’t expect anybody to clean up the whole river, but they are expected to clean up this site.”
“If the DEP tells them to do it, they’ll have to do it,” added committee member Allyn Brown.
Even if Utopia Studios defers on the development agreement – which residents approved by a 6-5 majority on May 23 – Earth Tech is still obligated to finish the Phase III Environmental Study at Utopia’s expense.
Touring an Unsightly Site
More than meets the eye at the State Hospital
By Stephen Kurczy
Thousands of gallons of No. 6 fuel oil rested 65 feet below their boots. The nearby embankment leading down to the Thames River was littered with discarded objects. Both were remnants of the better days of Norwich State Hospital.
“For years they must have thrown their garbage all along the bank,” said First Selectman Robert Congdon, addressing five locals and one Ledyard resident touring the property last Saturday.
Congdon pointed to footprints, tracking up the embankment and past several buildings.
“Someone was looking for an unlocked door,” he said.
Feet crunched through the snow as the first selectman told the story of the institution’s rise and fall. A white blanket covered many wounds of the abandoned buildings, boarded shut when the hospital closed in 1993 after nearly 90 years of operation, sending many patients to the streets of downtown Norwich.
It opened as one building in October 1904 and grew rapidly, morphing into a colony complete with a farm, greenhouse and resident physicians, mechanics, cooks and carpenters, housing more than 3,000 patients at its peak.
“After seeing these old buildings,” said Susan Schneider of Preston after seeing the gothic lattices of the administration building, “it’d be nice if they would save as many as they could.”
The tour began at The Kettle Building, the main entrance, built in 1959, around the same time the pumphouse, 15 cottages for physicians, an incinerator, an Occupational Therapy Building, an employees’ building, a chapel and a research and clinical laboratory building were constructed.
The tour did not pass the incinerator, which sits near Poquetanuck Cove, nor did the tour pass the 10-acre reservoir or the site where two World War II fighter planes collided in a practice run.
“Do you have any idea what this building was?” asked Bob Payette of Preston, who for several months operated a weblog called “Big Doings in Cow Town” that discussed the redevelopment of the property.
“I believe this was the carpenter’s building or one of the maintenance buildings,” Congdon said. “You can see where the copper rails have been ripped off.”
Windows are broken, metals have been pillaged and graffiti stains several walls. At its peak, the hospital encompassed 900 acres. It still includes 470 acres; 419 lie in Preston.
Tunnels 6 feet high and 5 feet wide house underground pipes lined with asbestos insulation that carried water and power to the buildings, Congdon said. Tracks from an old trolley line that ran from Norwich to Westerly are hidden in the woods.
Stephen Dias of Ledyard said he has cross-country skied on the trolley tracks.
“It’s all overgrown,” he said
Environmental remediation has been estimated to cost up to $40 million.
For 10 years the state had sole control over cleaning the site or finding a developer who would. At one point the state held 24 letters of interest from developers. The town itself has been negotiating a purchase and sale agreement with the state for more than a year.
“To work with the state is like herding cats,” Congdon said.
July 2005: Mohegan Sun Welcomes Development
Mohegans Welcome Development
By Stephen Kurczy
As the town of Preston negotiates with Utopia Studios Ltd. over the development of the former Norwich State Hospital, the Mohegan Tribe watches silently from across the Thames River.
“I don't know exactly what (Joseph) Gentile (of Utopia Studios) is planning,” said Chuck Bennel, chief of staff at Mohegan Sun. “We have not reviewed any of the information, it has not been presented to us.”
Though only separated by a river, the two are not communicating. Bennel's last contact with Joseph Gentile, chief financial officer for Utopia Studios, was over a year ago and was a negative experience, according to Bennel. The Mohegan Sun has consequently taken “an awaiting approach” to the development.
Nevertheless, Bennel welcomes Utopia Studios to southeastern Connecticut.
“We're interested to see what will happen across the river,” Bennel said. “We believe it is good for the development of southeastern Connecticut and we will work with whoever develops that property.”
The Mohegan Sun Hotel looms over the abandoned acres of the Norwich Hospital that the Mohegan Tribe once considered buying.
In 1999, the state issued a Request For Proposal from specific parties interested in developing the land. Preston residents voiced concern however, when the Mohegan Tribe was the only longstanding proposal.
The state then decided to accept a wider range of proposals, instead of rolling with the Mohegan Tribe. Sensing they were unwelcome, the Mohegan Tribe withdrew interest.
The Mohegan Sun has since expanded on the Montville side of the Thames River and Preston has been negotiating with Gentile.
Bennel denies that the land needs to be developed, or even that the abandoned hospital is an eyesore; some buildings are even beautiful, he said. Nor would the development of a theme park, movie studio, and arts-college take away from the rural experience of the Mohegan Sun.
“An appropriately designed modern structure would also be pleasing,” Bennel said, then elaborating on the precautions taken by the Mohegan Tribe so as not to sever relations with the community. When building Mohegan Sun, the Mohegan Tribe invested $33 million alone into the Route I-395 connector.
“The Mohegan Tribe has been here for hundreds of years, we did not want to ruin our relationship with Montville because of the development. We sat down and talked with the community,” Bennel said. “I assume that whoever develops the Norwich Hospital land will take similar precautions.”
“If someone appropriately develops that property then everyone stands to gain, all of us who call this region home.”
6.2.05 What Is Your Utopia?
Between Buidlings
By Stephen Kurczy
Preston – What do you think the former Norwich State Hospital will become?
An amusement park,” said Dominic Zanardi.
“A movie studio,” said Josh Hales.
“A golf course,” said Rachel Hoye.
“I heard it was supposed to be a water park and a dome,” said Liz Caron.
Like many, these four juniors at Norwich Free Academy aren’t sure what to expect. But on Saturday they wanted to take a last look at the abandoned state hospital before it is sold to Utopia Studios Ltd.
A sign with names and arrows still exists: to get to the Seymour Geriatric Admission, go straight, to get to the Kettle Building, go left.
From across the Thames River, the Mohegan Sun Tower loomed over the four Preston residents, walking around with a digital camera and Hales’ two dogs for protection, awed with the maze of abandoned brick buildings.
“We were thinking about going inside,” Hales said, “because the door is unlocked, but we saw a sign that says there’s asbestos inside.”
State of Connecticut Eugene T. Boneski Treatment Center Department of Public Health and Addiction Services, said another sign, useless since the hospital was abandoned in 1995.
“I heard that they used to do weird experiments on people here,” Hales said. “We saw a chair with a wire thing sticking out of it.”
“And there’s a tray of needles by it on the ground,” Caron said.
What happened inside the Norwich State Hospital before 1995 is a mystery to these four, but what has become of the 470-acre grounds is certain.
“There’s curtains blowing without any wind,” Hoye said. “I think it’s haunted.”
“It’s stupid just to leave all these buildings here for no reason,” Zanardi said. “They should do something with them.”
“They should make a scary movie with them,” Caron said.
Caron’s suggestion is right on target. Developer Joseph Gentile plans to invest $1.6 billion to create the largest film and sound studios east of Hollywood, along with a theme park the size of Disneyland, a 4,000-room hotel complex, a marina, and a huge, domed-roof entertainment and retail complex.
That and a 6,000-student arts school, but these four weren’t as excited about that.
“I’m not into art,” Hales said.
“I don’t think most Preston kids are,” added Caron.
Despite “No Trespassing” signs and barricaded roads, the four had walked onto the property from Hales’ home. Each lives in proximity of the grounds, and would feel a direct impact in traffic, as well as property value and other variables, if Utopia Studios Ltd. buys the land.
“It’ll be worth it though,” Hales said, “We’ll get used to it.”
“It’ll be a long time from now,” Caron added, thinking years in advance to when the project could be completed. “We won’t be here by then.”
